


The Ghosts Still Left Behind

by lapetitesinge



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 01:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapetitesinge/pseuds/lapetitesinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Gabriel's death, Sam struggles with his guilt--there was more to him than met the eye, even more than Dean knows, and Sam's now only realizing what it all meant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghosts Still Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble written for the prompt "I was wrong" at LJ.

Dean keeps catching Sam watching the  _Casa Erotica 13_  DVD in the week after they leave the Elysian Fields hotel. Sam always tries to hide it when he realizes Dean has noticed, but by the third time, Dean can't take it anymore and looks over from the driver's seat.

"Dude, seriously? Again? I'm all for it, but you gotta branch out a little. I can lend you one through twelve if you're hard-up."

"I'm not watching that part," Sam retorts, reddening. "Just...the beginning. You know, his message."

Dean's brow furrows. "We've heard it," he says. "We can put the jack back in the box with the four rings. You need the Cliffs Notes?"

" _No._  I just..." He drops his gaze back to the laptop. "I dunno, I just feel bad. Gabriel died because of us. I mean, he's not the only one, but..."

Dean's expression softens ever so slightly. "Yeah, I know," he says. "But...well, you heard him. Dude went down fighting. He wanted to stand up to his brother, and he knew the risks." He pauses, swallows. "Can't dwell on it, Sammy. We gotta focus. We gotta keep looking for those rings."

"Yeah. I know. You're right." He knows it's stupid to keep thinking about it, but he can't help it. Somehow, Gabriel dying for them is just a little worse than almost everyone else so far. And he can hardly believe he's even thinking that, after everything he put them through--all the Mystery Spot stuff, the crazy TV-shows thing...but after all, in the end, he was on their side, and this thing with the rings might actually save everything, if they can pull it off. And besides, there's the other stuff, the stuff Dean doesn't know about. There's a lot Dean doesn't know about things that happened while he was downstairs.

At first Sam had thought he was just being paranoid, seeing demons and monsters everywhere. He just thought grief and lack of sleep were making him lose focus, and he was just looking for anything to fight, maybe even something that would finally finish him off and put an end to his horrible, fucked-up guilt. That's what Bobby had said he was doing, anyway. But as the weeks pressed on, he became more sure that he was being followed--or "haunted" might have been more accurate. He kept seeing the Trickster everywhere, ducking out of coffee shops as soon as Sam went in, strolling on the opposite side of the street, slipping into crowds and disappearing as soon as Sam tried to get a second look. Sometimes he even thought he saw him in other forms, other faces--he'd look at the night clerk at a roadside motel and see a familiar gleam in his eyes, or recognize that mouth, the one that seemed tailor-made for smirking. It happened almost everywhere he went, town after town. He didn't seem to be causing any mayhem, but it still made Sam enraged: hadn't he tormented him enough  _before_  Dean had died? Now he had to come back and rub it in?

Finally, in Omaha, he decided he'd had enough. He waited for the right moment to present itself, and sure enough, three nights after he got there he was sitting in a diner and noticed that the man sitting four booths away hadn't turned a page of his newspaper in a good ten minutes. Sam waited, drinking cup after cup of coffee (he couldn't bring himself to order pie, not anymore) and watching the newspaper. It grew later and later, and eventually it was just Sam and the other guy left, and the sole waiter was giving them both odd looks. Finally, Sam paid his bill and left, but instead of going to Dean's--his--car, parked right underneath the neon lights, he lurked by the door, just out of sight. He watched as the man (a stranger, or so he seemed) finally lowered his paper and peered out the window at the car, and then, after a moment, got up and threw some money down on the table. He looked outside at the parking lot again, frowning, and then headed for the door.

Fortunately, the guy behind the counter had chosen that moment to go back into the kitchen, and Sam pounced as soon as the bell on the door jingled, grabbing the man and pinning him to the wall.  _"Why are you following me?"_

"Hey, what--?! Who are you? Get off me! I don't--"

"Don't even bother," Sam snarled. "I know exactly who you are."

The guy's terrified expression melted into a look of defiant amusement, and he morphed back into his usual form. "Fine, you got me," he said, "A hundred points to you. But it wouldn't be very fair to kill me. I didn't kill your brother this time, and you did say--"

"Shut up," Sam snapped. "Why the fuck are you following me?" If he hadn't inherited Dean's eating habits in his absence, he had at least inherited his language. "Haven't you had enough fun with me?"

"Fun?" Trickster demanded. "You think this is  _fun_? I've never been so bored in my  _life._  You lead the squarest existence of anyone I've ever met, and that includes several popes. You drink coffee, you kill demons, you read books, rinse and repeat in the next town." He rolled his eyes. "Seriously, man, one strip club is all I ask. Although, I must say, that little brunette you've been hanging around with is really--"

"You didn't answer my question," Sam interrupted, tightening his grip on the Trickster's shirtfront. " _Why_  are you bothering with me? Dean's  _dead._  For real this time. Are you happy?"

He had stopped grinning; now he looked merely sullen, or maybe it was something else. "Not especially," he said. He shrugged. "I was just...verifying a theory."

"What does that mean?"

He rolled his eyes again, and now he looked almost...embarrassed? Was that possible? "Well, we saw how you acted in the dress rehearsals," he said. "Now it's the real thing. I just wanted to see if you'd get all Colonel Kurtz like last time, or if you'd go the tragic, noble avenger route." He paused. "Jury's still out. What  _are_  you doing with those demons, anyway?"

Sam ignored this. This didn't make sense. "So you're just...checking up on me?" he asked, incredulous. "You're spying on me to see how I'm coping?"

"Well, when you put it like  _that_ , it sounds weird," Trickster said, aggravated. "Look, like I said, I didn't kill him this time, and I'm not even really screwing with you, so just let it go, all right?"

Without realizing it, Sam had let go of him. He just stared at him for a long moment. "Why did you bother at all?" he asked finally. "With us...with me. All that time and effort. Why?"

"I told you back then," he said, attempting to look smug, but not quite managing it. "I liked you. I liked your style. And besides, the two of you bickering was hilarious, you've got to admit that." Sam said nothing, and the Trickster's smile faltered again. "Because you needed to prepare yourself," he said finally. "You just weren't accepting that he was gonna die, at all, and it's worse when you don't."

"Well, thanks a lot," Sam said harshly. "I learned my lesson; it really helped. It's much better now. I don't miss him at all." He shook his head in disgust. "You--you don't know a thing about it."

"Don't I?" He considered him for a moment. "Hmm. Well, what I do know is that Dean's not exactly doing Jell-O shots and playing strip poker right now, and it's probably far worse than he ever expected. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should've worked on him instead." And very casually, he lifted a hand and traced the side of Sam's jaw with one finger, and then tapped him under the chin. "But it's almost worse being left behind. Sometimes it sucks to be the little brother, doesn't it."

Sam couldn't speak. They just stood there, looking at each other for a few more moments. Then the Trickster said "Ah, well. See you around, kid." And then he was gone, and Sam heard an odd  _whoosh_  and felt something like a breeze against his face. 

***

  


It hadn't made sense at the time, of course, but it does now. Sam thinks he'd always understood what was coming, always known that eventually his brother would break out of Hell and he would eventually have to pick a side. He had left his family when it got to be too much, just like Sam had, even though it had hurt more than anything, and he had eventually come back, even though he knew it might mean the end of him. Maybe that was what family was; taking that risk. Maybe that was what he had needed to learn all along.

Sam closes his laptop, and picks up the map sitting on the dashboard. "So we think Pestilence is hanging out in Nevada?" he says to Dean. Dean's right; they need to focus on finding the rings. It seems like the least he can do, the closest thing to a "thank you" he can manage at this point.


End file.
